US President Barack Obama speaks during a town hall meeting on health insurance at Portsmouth High School in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on August 11, 2009. AFP PHOTO/Jewel SAMAD (Photo credit should read JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images) less

US President Barack Obama speaks during a town hall meeting on health insurance at Portsmouth High School in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on August 11, 2009. AFP PHOTO/Jewel SAMAD (Photo credit should read ... more

Photo: Jewel Samad, AFP/Getty Images

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Obama giving health care critics upper hand

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A president famous for his campaign skills has let the opposition define the debate on health care reform, the central issue of his party and his presidency.

As Democrats faced raucous town halls across the nation this week, President Obama labored to squelch doubts about draft health legislation rather than tout its virtues.

He must turn the debate around by next month, when Congress returns to Washington, many analysts say, or repeat the fate of the last Democratic president who tried to reform health care 16 years ago.

"Obama has lost control of the debate, and when that happens, it's over," said health care consultant Robert Laszewski. "The well's been poisoned."

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Few issues are riper for fearmongering than health care. Overconfident Democrats, focused more on covering the uninsured than reassuring those who have coverage, may have moved too far too fast, given growing public skepticism about industry bailouts, a costly fiscal stimulus and ballooning federal debt.

Trying to avoid the mistakes of former President Bill Clinton, Obama left the bill-writing to Congress, where Democratic divisions, scant GOP support and sharp criticism by the Congressional Budget Office and other neutral experts left Obama without political cover when attacks from the right began.

Middle Americans worried

Distortions by conservative activists "have spread like wildfire," said Laszewski, president of Health Policy and Strategy Associates, a Washington consulting firm. "You've got middle Americans scared to death." Activists "start the brushfire, and since there's no one credible in the middle, no 15 Republican senators to stand up and say it's not true, it takes on a life of its own."

Obama's stumbles have magnified the challenge. His claim this week that the American Association of Retired Persons had endorsed Democratic legislation provoked a denial from the powerful senior lobby. Last month, he created a huge distraction just as he was trying to execute his health-reform sales pitch by blundering into the controversy over the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's charge this week that the town hall protests were "un-American" was "a terrible tactical mistake," said American University political analyst Allan Lichtman, who faulted Democrats on strategy, too.

"You've got to pitch this to what it's going to do for the 200 million Americans participating in the system, not for those who are outside the system," he said.

For sheer distortion, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's "death panel" charge, implying euthanasia of the elderly and disabled under the health care plan, hit what some called a new low in modern American politics.

"That is the most irresponsible statement a politician has made in decades," said Boston University political historian Thomas Whalen. "It worries me and should worry all Americans. What was said is a complete fabrication, and it's scaring elderly people."

For all Obama's campaign eloquence on change, the town hall protests this week have tapped into people's fear of change. Obama and his staff have focused on wonky policy details - such as the effect of health care costs on the federal budget - instead of how a new health plan would give more people better care.

"They've been using Mr. Spock words in a Dr. Spock debate," said Jim Kessler, vice president for policy at Third Way, a Democratic-leaning think tank.

Repeating Clinton's mistakes

In trying to avoid Bill Clinton's mistakes, Obama may be repeating them. Instead of concocting a secret White House plan and releasing it to a dubious public, he let key members of Congress meeting for months behind closed doors do the same thing.

"They learned the process mistakes," said GOP strategist Karen Hanretty. "They thought, 'If it comes from inside the White House, then we own it, so we'll give it to Congress and they can own it and we'll just talk about these issues from the 30,000-foot level.' "

That doesn't work with such an emotional issue, she said, and the White House wound up substituting the popular Obama brand with a tarnished congressional one.

"He never put his Obama seal of approval on it," Hanretty said. "His brand is trustworthy, but Congress' brand is not."

Hopeful Democrats said the shrillness of the attacks will generate a backlash. "Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I've got to think these protesters just overplayed their hand," Kessler said.

"What Obama and the Democrats have to do is ignore the rabble, focus on the middle class and what's in it for them. They need to be blue in the face selling that message."